Most of my recent gigs have come through friends working on interesting problems, but those places have done plenty of hiring so I know this is not the only way

Most of my recent gigs have come through friends working on interesting problems, but those places have done plenty of hiring so I know this is not the only way to find these. My recommendation is to start looking for teams doing interesting work out there and reach out to them directly (especially if they're smaller startups). Technically curious people reaching out to teams working on hard problems is a strong signal for those teams. But the key is, don't present yourself as looking for work, show you're interested in the same problem and have skills that will help. One caveat: if you're expected in FAANG style TC, then you won't be able to find great teams. You can still get paid well and work on interesting stuff, but if you are addicted to very high TC then you're going to have to fight it out at large companies still.